


dreams (don't) only last for a night

by sunsetveins



Series: at night i dream of you [1]
Category: All Time Low, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Homophobia, M/M, Religion, Self-Acceptance, not a huge factor, other than the homophobia
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-25
Updated: 2016-09-25
Packaged: 2018-08-17 03:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8129116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunsetveins/pseuds/sunsetveins
Summary: The dream fades out with the laughter, and Brendon wakes up smiling.But his head is filled with regret. He never wants to meet Ryan Ross. Ever.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey so i know brendon's family are mormons but i know nothing about that. my family are christians, and while i am not, it's still the religion i'm most familiar with. so i went with that. just thought i'd explain.
> 
> enjoy :)

Brendon is 5 and his mother thinks that learning to read is going to be the easiest thing in the world for him, so his first book is the bible.

She reads from it each night, and sometimes Brendon can read it back to her. It doesn't make sense, but he doesn't tell her that. He just repeats and repeats and repeats until he can see the words and say them back. 

His teacher reads him his second book. It rhymes and Brendon knows all the words and they make sense. He knows what each word means and he can actually read it instead of memorizing it. 

His mother beams proudly at him when he reads a sentence from the bible that she hadn't read to him.

He doesn't tell her that he only knew it because he'd learned to read in school.

 

-

 

Brendon learns about dreams at school when he's six. 

He had thought he knew what dreams were, as his mother had explained them, but it turns out there are two kinds of dreams. Three if you really wanted to get into it.

There are normal dreams, the kind that you remember while it's happening but forget as soon as you wake up. There are also transition dreams, and they're something more.

Transition dreams are the kind of dreams you remember when you wake up. You don't remember them as a whole, but in bits and pieces. They mean something.

The dreams you can wake up and remember, the transition ones, they lead you to what is called an awakening dream. The awakening dream is a dream you remember fully, and it tells you something important. It helps you realize something about yourself or a situation happening to you. It helps you understand.

Most of the time, the awakening dreams show you the future. When they don't, it's been assumed that you see an alternate future. 

At six years old, the dreams don't quite make sense to him. They sound really cool, though. He wants to have one.

His teacher smiles at him when he asks when he'll have one, and she tells him it'll happen when he needs help. When he's faced with something he might not be able to handle on his own.

When he goes home and tells his mother, she shakes her head and tells him that dreams don't exist. That it's wrong to have them because that makes you weak.

So when he goes to bed and wakes up a few hours later, broken pieces of a puzzle still vivid in his head, he doesn't run to her room to tell her about it. He keeps it to himself.

He doesn't want to be weak.

 

-

 

His father tells him that having dreams isn't bad. That the dreams are meant to help, and he shouldn't pay attention to his mother.

So he tells his dad about the dream he had that night. He tells him that he can remember flashes of things that didn't make sense. He could hear yelling, the smashing of glass, and a sense of relief. He remembers bright colors and something sticky. 

His father smiles and tells him that it's good he can remember that much of it, especially at six, and promises not to say a word to his mom.

 

-

 

At 10, he dreams of rainbows and screaming matches with his mother. He can't hear the words, but he can feel the heat behind them. He can feel the sticker on his cheek and he can see a smashed coffee mug on the floor. 

His head aches every time he has that dream and it gets to the point where he avoids sleeping, but he's ten and that doesn't work for very long.

His dad tells him that it means he's getting closer and closer to his first awakening dream. If this is what he'll go through every time, he hopes this is his last.

It's Friday and his mom had screamed at him for messing up his blessing when they prayed at dinner. It's that night when he has it.

She's yelling, screaming at the top of her lungs. He's screaming right back and he's louder than she could ever hope to be. The phrase 'singers lungs' pops into his head, but it's gone before it can become something he dwells on.

His mother screams about the church, about their reputation, about how she's so ashamed. Brendon screams right back and it's messy subjects. Things he knows nothing about. Something like pride, love, and acceptance. The only thing he could even begin to explain at ten is acceptance. He's never felt accepted.

All of the argument seem to fade out then, but he can hear every word on the subject of his mother accepting him. Brendon screams and cries and tells her that all he has ever wanted is to be accepted by her, to be loved right. She throws the mug, and he can feel himself flinch backwards. Everything turns silent then, and Brendon stares over her shoulder at a painting of a rainbow straight after the rain.

There's a sticker on his cheek, his mother is staring at that. His hand reaches up and he peels it off. There's a rainbow on it, "Pride" written in bold white letters underneath. 

The illusion shatters, and Brendon wakes up crying.


	2. Chapter 2

He doesn't say a word to his dad about the dream. He never has another one until he's sixteen.

He'd been having the fragmented dreams for almost 5 months. Ever since he met Brent. 

They'd included flashes of things like guitars and slender frames and brown eyes. He'd heard lyrics, the beat of a drum, and a voice he'd never forget. Sometimes, the bright colors would make an appearance. He'd feel the sticker on his cheek again. He'd see the rainbow in the painting on his wall.

It didn't take him a month to realize what the dream was telling him, what the one prior had been too. He's gay. His mother doesn't accept it. He's in love.

He figured it out when he met Alex and he told him about how sometimes he dreams of dark brown eyes and kissing under lights with stubble burns and chapped lips. Alex told him that he doesn't know who it is, had never had an awakening dream including him, but that he knows he's in his future. He knows he'll love him.

That doesn't stop either of them from making out in the music room during lunch. It doesn't stop them from dating. It doesn't stop them from falling in love.

Brendon is in love with Alex. He wants to be the man in his dreams. He wants Alex to be the one in his.

He knows that it's not true, that he isn't going to kiss Alex blind under any kind of lights when they're older and better, that Alex isn't the voice he'd never forget. He knows it's not true. 

But sometimes he tells himself that it is. He tells himself that until he makes himself sick. He tells himself that until the disappointment is too much when Alex's waist isn't as tiny as the one in his dreams.

When he stops telling himself that, that's when he stands up on a table and tells the entire school that he's gay. He's hella gay. Super fucking hella gay. And he's in love with the idiot smiling into the sleeve of the sweater he gave him from his closet last night. 

Because Alex isn't the man in his dreams, but he's all he wants right now. He's all he needs. He's fucking in love with Alex and he wants to own it for as long as he possibly can.

"You think you can out gay me, sunshine?" he mumbles into Alex's mouth, kissing him over and over again because he can.

"Nah, you'd probably throw glitter on me. Rainbow glitter. It'd take years to get that completely off." Alex is the one that pulls back and he grins at Brendon like he's all he'll ever see. God, Brendon wishes it were true.

So he kisses him again, because he has nothing else to offer.

"I love you so fucking much," he whispers, smiling when he feels Alex's lips curving against his own involuntarily.

"I love you, too."

 

-

 

The dream is more of a nightmare for Brendon. 

He's in a room with 3 other guys. They're all surrounded by instruments and crumbled paper and smoothies. The one that resembles a puppy is muttering to himself from behind his drum kit. The other two are quietly speaking, arguing, and Brendon is standing there looking lost. 

Then the pretty one, the one who is all bones and hair and brown eyes, looks up and he stares straight at Brendon with a pained look on his face. He speaks slowly, carefully, and Brendon's palms sweat as his heart races a mile a minute. 

Pretty Boy tells Brendon to sing for him, and he protests as loudly as possible without raising his voice above what would be accepted when reading aloud at school. He ends up singing though, and he's astonished with himself.

Time speeds up and everything moves in a blur until Brendon and Pretty Boy are alone in a room. Brendon is red and shaking and he's muttering about missing someone. Pretty Boy shrinks with every word, until determination crosses his features and he grabs Brendon's face and kisses him.

His waist is too small and his lips are sweeter than any lips belonging to a male should be. He and Brendon melt together and a small sigh escapes Brendon's lips. A small sigh that sounded a lot like a name. Ryan.

They pull apart and their foreheads are touching, noses brushing and breath fanning across their faces. 

Then Ryan pokes him and Brendon squeals, "Ryan Ross!"

The dream fades out with the laughter, and Brendon wakes up smiling.

But his head is filled with regret. He never wants to meet Ryan Ross. Ever.


End file.
